Green Synthesis of Nickel Oxide Nanoparticles and its Application in the Degradation of Methyl Red

Environmental pollution is a threat to human health, with methyl red dye used in printing and textile dyeing being a notable pollutant that can cause eye, skin, and digestive system irritation. This study investigates the degradation of methyl red dye using nanoparticles of Nickel Oxide (NiO NPs) as photocatalysts. NiO NPs were synthesised at room temperature through thermal decomposition using antioxidant-rich extracts from strawberries (Fragaria ananassa), grapes (Vitis vinifera), and grapefruits (Citrus paradisi). Characterisation of the NiO NPs was performed using FTIR, UV-Vis spectroscopy and SEM. FTIR spectra confirmed the formation of NiO NPs with peaks between 577 – 585 cm–1. UV-Vis spectroscopy showed absorption wavelengths between 322-326 nm for the synthesised NiO NPs and a blue shift to 422-470 nm during methyl red degradation. This study presents a sustainable method for  synthesising NiO nanoparticles and demonstrates their effectiveness in environmental remediation, specifically for the removal of  pollutant dyes. 

Lessons from Post-Immunotherapy Tumor Tissues in Clinical Trials: How Can We Fuel the Tumor Microenvironment in Gliomas?

Despite recent advancements in cancer immunotherapy, many patients with gliomas and glioblastomas have yet to experience substantial therapeutic benefits. Modulating the tumor microenvironment (TME) of gliomas, which is typically "cold", is crucial for improving treatment outcomes. Clinical tumor specimens obtained post-immunotherapy provide invaluable insights. However, access to such post-immunotherapy samples remains limited, even in clinical trials, as tumor tissues are often collected only at tumor relapse. Recent studies of neoadjuvant immunotherapy provided important insights by incorporating surgical resections of post-treatment tumors. Moreover, pre-surgical immunotherapies are increasingly integrated into clinical trial designs to evaluate treatment efficacy. These investigations reveal critical information, particularly regarding the delivery success of therapeutic agents, the expansion and persistence of immune products, and the cellular and molecular changes induced in the TME. In this review, we assess the findings on post-treatment tumor specimens obtained from recent immunotherapy clinical trials on gliomas, highlight the importance of these samples for understanding therapeutic impacts, and discuss proactive investigation approaches for future clinical trials

Liver transplantation as a multidisciplinary strategy for undergraduate education

O programa de transplante de fígado presta-se, no dia a dia, de forma excelente, ao ensino de graduação, especialmente na forma de iniciação científica com trabalhos de investigação experimental em laboratórios ou na forma de monitoria formal em investigação experimental ou clínica. Nesta segunda modalidade, o aluno auxilia o professor orientador em atividades mais ligadas à enfermaria e centro cirúrgico, com trabalhos de acompanhamento clínico dos doentes, ou estudos de casos em investigações tanto prospectivas como retrospectivas. Cabe ao orientador, atribuir atividades balanceadas, cujos horários de execução não colidam com os formais da graduação. Da mesma forma, cabe ao aluno estruturar suas horas livres para dedicar parte delas ao exercício da atividade científica. Assim, o aluno de graduação, terá a oportunidade de vivenciar as mais variadas facetas do transplante, tendo dele a necessária visão sistêmica, à medida que seu conhecimento se amplia. A importância do transplante é exatamente esta, com o contato diário, ao longo do tempo, formar a idéia plena do todo a partir das complexas partes que o constituem, propiciando ao graduando participar de situações e discussões que não são freqüentemente abordadas durante a graduação.The program of liver transplantation can contribute in an excellent manner to undergraduate education on a daily basis, especially in the form of scientific initiation with studies of experimental investigation in the laboratory or as formal monitoring in experimental or clinical investigation. In the latter modality, the student helps his tutoring professor in activities more related to the ward and to the Surgical Center, with studies on the clinical follow-up of patients, or with case studies in both prospective and retrospective investigations. It is the task of the adviser to attribute balanced activities whose time of execution will not interfere with formal graduation hours. Similarly, it is the responsibility of the student to structure his free time in order to devote part of it to the exercise of scientific activity. On this basis, the medical student will have the opportunity to experience the most varied facets of transplantation, acquiring the necessary systemic view of the procedure as his knowledge expands. The importance of liver transplant is exactly this, i.e., to obtain a complete idea of the whole with daily contact along time starting from the complex parts that constitute the procedure, exposes the student to diverse clinical situations rarely encountered together in other specialties, permitting him to participate in situations and discussions that are not often addressed during the medical course

COVID-19 INFODEMIC: PERCEPTION OF FAKE NEWS AMONG RESIDENTS OF IKEJA, LAGOS STATE, NIGERIA

Infodemic is an admixture of accurate and inaccurate information that makes the solution to a problem more difficult to solve. The impact of the covid-19 pandemic cannot be overlooked due to the influx of false information relating to the virus which has the tendency to create panic and cause the people to make uninformed decisions as a result of the emergence of the internet that has opened up a whole new space that is accessible as day via the social media platforms. The aim of this study is to examine the level of media literacy and the perception of fake news among Ikeja residents of Lagos, State. The descriptive survey research design was adopted involving the use of questionnaire. The sample size for this study was 378 respondents selected from the total number of population in Ikeja residents of Lagos state which was sectioned into wards and thereafter, streets adopting the multi-stage sampling technique. To arrive at a sample selection, Taro Yamane formula was adopted to calculate it while in answering the hypothesis, Chi-square was adopted. In order to proceed in filling of the questionnaire, firsthand question on their understanding regarding fake news was sought purposively. Study shows that WhatsApp and Facebook were the most source of fake news. Also, the respondents negatively perceive fake news relating to the Covid-19 pandemic as it is viewed as alarming and shouldn‘t be overlooked. The study recommends that the respondents should discourage others from relying solely on social media for news on important issues as Covid-19

Synthesis of polyol based Ag/Pd nanocomposites for applications in catalysis

The synthesis of polyvinylpyrrolidone seed mediated Ag/Pd allied nanobimetallic particles was successfully carried out by the simultaneous reduction of the metal ions in ethylene glycol, diethylene glycol, glycerol, pentaerythritol and sodium borohydride solution. The optical measurement revealed the existence of peak broadening that causes diffusion processes of the metal sols to decrease making it possible to monitor the changes spectrophotometrically. This, together with X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and high resolution TEM measurements strongly support the conclusion that intimately alloyed clusters were formed and the particle growth anisotropy is diffusion limited. Finally, the catalytic potential of the nanocomposites was investigated using 4-nitrophenol in the presence of sodium borohydride at 299 K; a good linear fitting of ln (A/A0) versus the reaction time was obtained, indicating pseudo-first-order kinetic

Precursor Epithelial Subtypes of Adenocarcinoma Arising from Intraductal Papillary Mucinous Neoplasms (A-IPMN): Clinicopathological Features, Recurrence and Response to Adjuvant Chemotherapy

Background: The clinico-oncological outcomes of precursor epithelial subtypes of adenocarcinoma arising from intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasms (A-IPMN) are limited to small cohort studies. Differences in recurrence patterns and response to adjuvant chemotherapy between A-IPMN subtypes are unknown. Methods: Clincopathological features, recurrence patterns and long-term outcomes of patients undergoing pancreatic resection (2010–2020) for A-IPMN were reported from 18 academic pancreatic centres worldwide. Precursor epithelial subtype groups were compared using uni- and multivariate analysis. Results: In total, 297 patients were included (median age, 70 years; male, 78.9%), including 54 (18.2%) gastric, 111 (37.3%) pancreatobiliary, 80 (26.9%) intestinal and 52 (17.5%) mixed subtypes. Gastric, pancreaticobiliary and mixed subtypes had comparable clinicopathological features, yet the outcomes were significantly less favourable than the intestinal subtype. The median time to recurrence in gastric, pancreatobiliary, intestinal and mixed subtypes were 32, 30, 61 and 33 months. Gastric and pancreatobiliary subtypes had worse overall recurrence (p = 0.048 and p = 0.049, respectively) compared with the intestinal subtype but gastric and pancreatobiliary subtypes had comparable outcomes. Adjuvant chemotherapy was associated with improved survival in the pancreatobiliary subtype (p = 0.049) but not gastric (p = 0.992), intestinal (p = 0.852) or mixed subtypes (p = 0.723). In multivariate survival analysis, adjuvant chemotherapy was associated with a lower likelihood of death in pancreatobiliary subtype, albeit with borderline significance [hazard ratio (HR) 0.56; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.31–1.01; p = 0.058]. Conclusions: Gastric, pancreatobiliary and mixed subtypes have comparable recurrence and survival outcomes, which are inferior to the more indolent intestinal subtype. Pancreatobiliary subtype may respond to adjuvant chemotherapy and further research is warranted to determine the most appropriate adjuvant chemotherapy regimens for each subtype

Randomized trial of neoadjuvant vaccination with tumor-cell lysate induces T cell response in low-grade gliomas

BACKGROUND. Long-term prognosis of WHO grade II low-grade gliomas (LGGs) is poor, with a high risk of recurrence and malignant transformation into high-grade gliomas. Given the relatively intact immune system of patients with LGGs and the slow tumor growth rate, vaccines are an attractive treatment strategy. METHODS. We conducted a pilot study to evaluate the safety and immunological effects of vaccination with GBM6-AD, lysate of an allogeneic glioblastoma stem cell line, with poly-ICLC in patients with LGGs. Patients were randomized to receive the vaccines before surgery (arm 1) or not (arm 2) and all patients received adjuvant vaccines. Coprimary outcomes were to evaluate safety and immune response in the tumor. RESULTS. A total of 17 eligible patients were enrolled — 9 in arm 1 and 8 in arm 2. This regimen was well tolerated with no regimen-limiting toxicity. Neoadjuvant vaccination induced upregulation of type-1 cytokines and chemokines and increased activated CD8+ T cells in peripheral blood. Single-cell RNA/T cell receptor sequencing detected CD8+ T cell clones that expanded with effector phenotype and migrated into the tumor microenvironment (TME) in response to neoadjuvant vaccination. Mass cytometric analyses detected increased tissue resident–like CD8+ T cells with effector memory phenotype in the TME after the neoadjuvant vaccination. CONCLUSION. The regimen induced effector CD8+ T cell response in peripheral blood and enabled vaccine-reactive CD8+ T cells to migrate into the TME. Further refinements of the regimen may have to be integrated into future strategies

Novel Insights into Pituitary Tumorigenesis: Genetic and Epigenetic Mechanisms.

Substantial advances have been made recently in the pathobiology of pituitary tumors. Similar to many other endocrine tumors, over the last few years we have recognized the role of germline and somatic mutations in a number of syndromic or nonsyndromic conditions with pituitary tumor predisposition. These include the identification of novel germline variants in patients with familial or simplex pituitary tumors and establishment of novel somatic variants identified through next generation sequencing. Advanced techniques have allowed the exploration of epigenetic mechanisms mediated through DNA methylation, histone modifications and noncoding RNAs, such as microRNA, long noncoding RNAs and circular RNAs. These mechanisms can influence tumor formation, growth, and invasion. While genetic and epigenetic mechanisms often disrupt similar pathways, such as cell cycle regulation, in pituitary tumors there is little overlap between genes altered by germline, somatic, and epigenetic mechanisms. The interplay between these complex mechanisms driving tumorigenesis are best studied in the emerging multiomics studies. Here, we summarize insights from the recent developments in the regulation of pituitary tumorigenesis